Usenet quoting

When Usenet and e-mail users respond to a message, they often want toinclude some context for the discussion. This is often accomplished by quoting the original message.

Usenet standard quoting refers to the practice of preceding the original messagewith a > character on each line, and then inserting one's responses inline, using nospecial designation for the author's messages.

> hello, how are you?I am fine

When a second response is made to the second message, the second message isagain quoting with >, perhaps causing parts of the original message to now be quoted with two >>. This goes on.

>> hello, how are you?> I am fineGood, I am also fine.

Enhanced quoting (such as facilitating by the Emacs supercite module), includes more context by using the initials or a short form of the name. Theprogram has to be careful not to quote already quoted material:

first> hello, how are you?

I am fine.

first> hello, how are you?second> I am fine.

Good, I am also fine.

It is often the case that it makes sense, particularly in the simple quoting case,to insert a note telling who said what:

> Last Saturday, when the sun was nice, Second Guy said:>> Last thursday, while eating popcorn, First Guy said:>> hello, how are you?> I am fineGood, I am also fine.

See also

* Top-quoting and other posting styles
* Diple (textual symbol)
* nested quote

HTML email and quoting

References